


You'll Wake Up Tomorrow (And the Day After, and the Day After That, Too)

by ghostchibi



Series: Arcverse [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Agender Character, Blind Betrayal spoilers, Depression, Other, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Male Character, heavy implication of an interrupted suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-12 21:10:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5680897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostchibi/pseuds/ghostchibi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glimpses into Danse's life, post-Blind Betrayal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll Wake Up Tomorrow (And the Day After, and the Day After That, Too)

**Author's Note:**

> This is written with some projecting of my own experiences with depression. I've seen so much of suicidal Danse in fics, but I feel like I've never really read any fics with him being suicidal and depressed that took a more hopeful approach.

Danse is a thing.

He is an object. He is machinery built in the mimicry of humans. He bleeds, he breathes, he speaks. He is made to do all of this.

When Arc pulls Danse closer and rests their head against his chest, he fears that they hear the tick-tock of clockwork instead of a heartbeat, or the whirring of gears instead of inhaled and exhaled breaths. Arc tells him that they hear no such thing, and that even if they did, that wouldn't change the fact that Danse is a person.

Human is a specific type of person, they say. Not all people have been or are human.

* * *

He's surprised that all the alcohol in his system hasn't already shut him down. He wonders if maybe, being a synth, it gives him some level of resistance.

"Danse, can you please give me that pistol back?"

It's his, though.

He can't stand up without feeling like he's going to retch. So he stays sitting on the cot, scuffing his feet on the dirty floor. He feels feverish and disgusting inside.

"Beer doesn't work so well to oil gears, I guess," he manages to slur out half-coherently. Arc frowns and slowly stands.

"You don't have any gears inside of you to oil," they say. The safety on the gun is still turned on, but the lighting is poor and Arc is too far away to see it. It's easy to flick off, though. Arc is right to be nervous, but Danse would never do anything to hurt them. He would say that he would rather die than hurt Arc, but it seems like such a hollow promise when dying is something he actively hopes for.

Arc slowly steps across the room, footsteps loud and clear. When they get close enough, then kneel down in front of Danse, one hand held out.

"Danse, please, may I have the pistol?"

Arc doesn't deserve this, doesn't deserve him. They fight so hard to keep a broken piece of machinery just barely functional. If he died, Arc would be able to move on to better things. Be able to put their energy into the things that matter.

"I care about you. I don't want you to get hurt, okay?"

Danse's grip on the pistol weakens, and he nods. Arc's hand is still outstretched.

He places the pistol in Arc's palm, and Arc walks away to place the pistol somewhere out of reach before returning. They cradle Danse's face in one hand, rubbing his cheek with a thumb.

"Thank you."

Danse's head is swimming. His breathing is hard again, and there's a can of water being offered to him.

"You'll feel a little better in the morning if you drink some."

He nods, and takes tiny sips to avoid making himself sick. Arc waits patiently until he finishes the can, sweeping away stray locks of hair from his eyes.

Eventually Danse lies down, fighting the nausea in his stomach. Arc pulls a bucket over to the cot for Danse, and turns to their pack. Danse's arm immediately shoots out to latch onto their wrist.

"Please don't leave," he whimpers.

"I won't leave, I promise. I need to get to my pack. I promise I won't go anywhere."

Danse still won't let them go, too afraid that Arc is going to leave the listening post if he does. Arc seems to think for a moment, before reaching up and pulling off their Brotherhood holo-tags.

"Can you hold onto these for me? I can't leave without these, right? I'll be right back. Just hold onto my holo-tags, and I'll be right back."

It's a means to appease Danse momentarily; he knows that Arc can't leave without them. So he takes the chain, feeling the coldness of metal against his palm, and Arc moves to their pack discarded on the floor to dig through it for something. Arc returns, just as they'd promised, this time holding two more cans of purified water and a blanket.

"I don't want you to get cold."

Arc crawls over Danse to lie in the small space between Danse and the wall, saying something about not wanting to make Danse feel caged in. The cot is much too small for the two of them, and Danse crowds Arc against the wall uncomfortably lying on his back, but Arc just pushes him back down gently by the shoulder and tells him to sleep in whatever position he's most comfortable in.

It's cold even with the blanket. Arc's breath is warm against his neck.

* * *

Arc sleeps in the same room as Danse these days. Danse knows exactly why. Two beds placed across from each other in the bedroom of Arc's house in Sanctuary, close enough so that when Danse looks to his right and Arc looks to their left they can still see each other's faces in the moonlight. Sometimes they talk, while everyone else is asleep, because they can't sleep. Arc places their Pip-Boy screen face down on those nights, obscuring the clock. Because it doesn't help them sleep if they stare at the clock, Arc explains. Because they don't need a clock to tell them that they should be asleep if they can't sleep. It will come when it does.

They stay up all night once; Arc keeps the ruined blinds closed, and locks the bedroom door from the inside so that nobody can disturb them while they sleep through the whole day. Danse feels guilty, but Arc reminds him that his body needs to rest.

"You can't be at your best if you don't rest as much as you need to."

Danse needs to rest an awful lot these days. He wakes up already tired, an exhaustion deep within himself that can't be remedied by any amount of sleep. Some days he can't get out of bed at all. Some days he manages to get up, and then sits on the floor as his brain screams at him to stand up. Arc helps him up off of the floor, and gently asks him if he wants to sleep or if he wants to stay awake. Those days are generally spent sitting on the ruined couch in Arc's house, too awake to sleep and too tired to move.

Sometimes, if there's time, Arc joins him on the couch. Danse leans against them, and Arc pulls him closer against their side, an arm wrapped around his shoulders or his waist. They sit silently, or Arc tells him stories, or they talk.

Danse wishes that he could do more, that he wasn't so tired all of the time. He wishes that he could scrub the exhaustion from his body and make it work, make it useful again.

Arc always reminds him that being useful isn't what makes people important.

* * *

Danse is glad to be useful. Even if it's something as simple as holding up part of a wall as Sturges nails it into place, he feels like less of a waste of space and time. Arc smiles at him while Sturges curses at a waylaid nail, and Danse smiles back.

Later, Arc tells him how proud they are of him. For getting up this morning, for getting out of bed and getting dressed and eating breakfast. These are things that Danse had done every single day before all of this. This should be normal, not something to be proud of.

"Of course I should be proud. You did a good job today."

Arc smiles, and pats Danse on the cheek affectionately when his head dips down.

"I'm so proud of you. You're so incredibly brave, Danse."

He doesn't feel brave. He feels broken. He feels wrong. He feels that coldness creeping through him again, and instinctively his hand reaches out for Arc. A smaller hand grabs his, slots fingers in the spaces between his own.

"I don't feel very brave," he admits.

"That's okay. You still are, even if you don't think so."

Sturges hollers for Arc. Arc calls back, head turned away from Danse.

Arc's hair catches the light, and wavy black locks seem to shimmer brown in the sun like a darkened halo. An angel of black and brown, rather than white and gold, but an angel nonetheless.

"Do you want to come with me? Sturges needs some more help."

Danse nods.

* * *

The perimeter of Sanctuary is always carefully guarded. The walls do a decent job, but there are still raiders that make their attempts. Danse does his part to keep the settlement safe, patrolling during the day whenever he has the energy to. He shoots warning shots at yao guai that get too close, and it's usually enough to keep them away. Sometimes a larger one will charge the wall, but it's never too much of a task to take down.

The raiders, on the other hand, can be a handful.

Arc runs past Danse, shoving microfusion cells into his hands hastily to make sure he doesn't run out of ammo before darting away, screaming battle cries and threatening severe bodily harm to the raiders. This is their home, this is theirs, this is not for anyone else to take, _how dare they come here and try to take it away-_

Danse falls to one knee as a bullet hits his leg. The sound that Arc makes is utterly animalistic, and Danse aims his gun up in a mad scramble to shoot the raider before he's shot again when Arc smashes the raider's head clear off with a chain-wrapped baseball bat.

"TRY IT AGAIN, MOTHERFUCKER, I DARE YOU-"

The next raider gets the same treatment, a smash to the kneecaps and then a swing straight down to the skull when they fall into the earth face-first. Why Arc doesn't have a gun is a question Danse wants to ask, but at the moment his thigh sears with pain so he takes potshots from his position when he can, hoping to give Arc some covering fire.

The wound is easily fixed with forceps to remove the bullet and a stimpak to knit torn muscle and skin. Arc still worries over him regardless, and in the end carries Danse back to the house much to Danse's embarrassment.

"Arc, I can walk!" he protests. Arc lifts him with an ease that suggests that they've done this before, but this is the first time Danse has ever been carried by Arc. He's done his fair share of carrying the former vault dweller. Having their roles switched feels odd.

And yet, as Danse loops his arm around Arc's neck to steady himself, it feels like the most natural place for him to be.

* * *

Danse forgets to eat quite a lot, which is shocking to him. Somehow, he can go without realizing his own hunger, his own basic needs. His forgetfulness has increased at an alarming rate; sometimes it's past noon before he realizes that all he's had is two cans of water.

Arc tries to cook Danse's favorite foods so that he can stomach something. They think of ways to make food more palatable, ever since Danse had admitted that everything tastes like concrete and it's hard to keep anything down when he can hardly taste it in the first place. Sometimes Danse doesn't eat much that would count as healthy, but Arc considers it a step in the right direction for him to eat anything at all. Certainly, a diet of snack cakes and Nuka-Cola-soaked crackers is missing a rather vital amount of nutrition, but it's better than absolutely nothing at all.

Danse chokes down the stew as best as he can, ignoring the bitterness of the radstag chunks and how the bits of tato taste more like adhesive. Arc promises to make him a meat pie when they have enough flour.

* * *

Arc tosses a wrapped package at Danse, who catches it easily. The look on their face is hard to read.

"It looks like I missed a few things when I gathered up your stuff the first time around. Why didn't you tell me? That's important."

Danse unwraps it, and discovers several small bottles and two syringes. He swallows. He wonders if Arc thinks him an addict of some sort. Arc shakes their head.

"Danse, if you need this, you need to tell me. I don't want you going into withdrawal."

"This isn't-" he starts, and Arc silences him with a hand on the shoulder.

"I know what it is. Remember who you're talking to?"

He blinks. And then feels a little bit ridiculous.

"Just because I never thought about hormones myself doesn't mean I don't know what that is. How long have you been without it?"

"Two weeks," he says. That's when his last vial ran dry, when his panic set in. The logical conclusion to solving the issue would have been to ask Arc, explain that there were still a few more things he was missing from his old room on the Prydwen. But somehow the idea of asking terrified Danse. In his head, going without had been better than asking, and even though he knew that it wasn't a logical choice, he still couldn't bring himself to ask.

"Two weeks."

"Yes."

Arc sighs and rubs their face, then sits down next to Danse.

"I'm sorry about this. It's not my business to know."

Arc has already seen the scars on Danse's chest, but never asked about their source. Danse had assumed that Arc didn't know what they were from, or thought that they were just like the other scars that littered his body. He never thought of the possibility that Arc hadn't asked because they already knew. Which actually seems like the most logical reason, in retrospect.

"I don't know why I was so frightened of telling you," Danse admits. "You're the last person I know who would judge me for it."

"It's not anyone's business but your own, Danse. I only need to know so that I can make sure you keep getting everything you need."

He wonders to himself whether or not to let Arc in on a little secret of his.

"May I tell you a secret?"

"Of course."

"When we first met and you corrected me, I was... excited. I know that sounds childish, but I realized that you and I were similar, and it made me happy. I had support, and nobody in the Brotherhood had ever treated me badly for it, but..."

"It doesn't really have the same feeling, does it? That's not childish or silly. That's completely normal. You felt like you fit in."

Arc smiles, and Danse smiles back.

"I'll find a way to get you more hormones. I'm sure I can sweet-talk one of the scribes into telling me if I act curious."

"That would sound suspicious-"

"Not if I say that I found it in your room, and I'm curious because I want to know if I might be able to get some for myself too. I'm sure it'll sound convincing enough if I ask."

Arc has apparently thought this through very well. Danse is equal parts impressed and grateful.

* * *

Danse had never meant to blurt out his feelings like that. But what's done is done. Arc knows now exactly how Danse feels.

It's like a weight has been pulled from his heart.

Arc kisses him lazily as they awaken; the two beds are now replaced by a larger one, a queen-sized mattress that fits them both comfortably. Danse doesn't have the energy to get out of bed right now. Maybe later, when the sun is high in the sky and the cold of the morning warms into something more bearable. But Arc has to leave, because there are settlements to tend to and Brotherhood duties and Nick's cases and really, Danse just wants to be able to hold Arc for once, let them rest instead of run around all over the Commonwealth.

He worries when Arc leaves. Arc always promises to return.

"I'm not going to leave you. I promise."

Arc presses one last kiss to Danse's forehead, smoothing back errant strands of hair. 

Just as promised, Arc returns a few days later. The sound of power armor depressurizing reaches Danse's ears as he helps tend to the tato crops, and his excitement gets the better of him. The shovel is dropped to the ground, abandoned, and he runs to greet Arc.

They hug him tightly and laugh at the eager welcome, littering kisses across his nose and cheeks. There's a smear of grease on their forehead that Danse rubs off with his thumb.

"How were the last few days?"

Danse is able to answer with good news this time. He had tried making a mirelurk egg omelette with Cait, and succeeded in not setting anything on fire. One of the settlers had found a radstag somehow stuck in a hole in the settlement's outer wall, and MacCready had been smacked in the head with its antlers because he had gotten too close. Arc smiles as Danse talks, completely engrossed in the stories he relays.

It isn't until later that he remembers that he'd been in the middle of something when Arc had returned. Nobody bears him any ill will for it; they're glad enough to see him and Arc smile.

* * *

Danse still struggles with his thoughts, or to get out of bed, or to eat. All of that still happens, and Danse feels frustrated that despite all of the good things that have happened in his life, he hasn't gotten better.

Arc presses a kiss to his forehead and reminds him to be patient with himself.

"I know," he says, because he does. He knows he needs to be patient with himself.

He wishes he could be rid of these terrible thoughts for good. He wishes Arc's love could fix him. But he knows that it won't; that no amount of care can ultimately "fix" anything. It can help things along, and Danse is certain that he never would have gotten this far without Arc.

Danse thinks that Arc is the only reason he's still here, but Arc always tells him that he's the one who survived all of it.

"Don't sell yourself short. You've made it to here not because anyone else did it for you, but because you did."

He'll make it, he knows. He wants to.


End file.
